Marketing confidence in Europe rose to its highest ever level in September, according to Warc’s latest Global Marketing Index.

The region’s headline GMI index – which takes into account marketers’ expectations for trading conditions, marketing budgets and staffing levels – rose 4.2 points from August to record a value of 60.2 this month, where a reading of 50.0 indicates neutral sentiment. The reading also represents an uptick of 5.3 points versus the same month last year.

The GMI is a unique indicator of the state of the global marketing industry. Every month it tracks conditions among marketers within their organisation and region. It tracks marketing budgets, trading conditions and staffing levels. A reading of 50 indicates no change, and above 60 indicates rapid growth.

Howard contributes to the Global Marketing Index.

Filed under: Latest Articles Tagged: Global Marketing Index, WARC]]>howardredfoximage005The ubiquity of everything. How the ‘sharing economy’ will destroy brand value.https://howardredfox.wordpress.com/2014/09/16/the-ubiquity-of-everything-how-the-sharing-economy-will-destroy-brand-value/
Tue, 16 Sep 2014 13:30:00 +0000http://howardredfox.wordpress.com/?p=1590]]>If you have enough money, there is virtually nothing you cannot buy. The value of possessing some physical goods, I would contend however, is now reducing in some instances to only slightly above the value of the commoditised functionality the goods provide.

There was once a time, not that long ago, that arriving at your favourite purveyor of fine burritos late at night in a Ferrari, differentiated oneself as being in the economic elite. Certainly put you in the ‘1%’. And such differentiation was worth a premium. You remember – for the brand – all those attributes carefully crafted by us marketers.

No more. Could be that you have deadmau5 (a DJ of some not inconsequential repute), as your Uber driver, in his Ferrari.

Want to really impress your neighbours in the Hamptons NY? Catch a helicopter using the latest flight sharing scheme: “We want to make it approachable and easy and transparent for young people who think only billionaires fly planes,” Evan Licht, general manager at “Blade” an app that facilitates booking helicopter trips from Manhattan to the Hamptons for just $450 a ride, reportedly told The New York Post. That is far less than the usual $3 000 beating the traffic to your Hamptons holiday-home normally costs, and is infinitely cheaper than watering and stabling your own helicopter in New York City.

Diamonds are forever. At least de Beers hopes so. But what if previously exclusive, extraordinarily expensive, diamond necklaces became accessible to the masses? http://hautevault.com – “The savvy approach to luxury, rent.” Or Adorn.com – “The look worthy of a princess – rent the Middleton earrings for only $160”. Accessible luxury means such “luxury” becomes far less differentiating for the limited few who truly can afford to own it outright.

The ideal type of luxury goods, such as top branded champagne, designer handbags, jewellery and luxury cars, are what are known to economists as ‘Veblen goods’, named after economist Thorstein Veblen, who famously identified the concepts of conspicuous consumption and status-seeking. Veblen goods are the holy grail of luxury brands because their desirability increases with an increased in price. In effect they are desirable because they are only accessible to those prepared to pay a high price. Conversely, decreasing their price (even through sharing apps or rental arrangements I contend) decreases peoples’ preference for buying them because they are no longer perceived as exclusive or high-status products.

What does this new-age, increased product-accessibility mean for brand owners? Consumer access to brands used to mean having to buy the actual associated physical good (excluding services and intangibles, obviously). Now that is no longer a requirement, and it doesn’t take much of an increase in accessibility to significantly reduce the exclusivity and thus differentiation of such branded goods. This could be crippling for luxury brand owners. More troubling is that brand owners lose control of their brands to others (e.g. such as the Blade app) who leverage the value of the brand to their own benefit, while reducing the brand’s exclusivity and brand premium to all other purchasers – to the clear determent of the actual brand owner.

Personally I am a bit surprised. Sure I have seen the vigorous drum-beating by Cisco, and everyone is quoting that $14 billion value of the IoT espoused by Cisco / “multi trillion” valuation by PwC (by 2020), but down here at the tip of Africa, “Big Data” still seems to hold sway by a sizeable margin.

That said, Marketers across the world appear to remain underwhelmed by the real opportunities and threats the IoT offers. I suspect, just like the development of “digital marketing” was effectively driven by technology suppliers and internet startups rather than professional marketers and their service providers – the IoT will again face at best a reticent marketing community, at worse a recalcitrant one.WAKE UP MARKETERS!